Merrylog

After a great deal of dithering and wondering whether we’d be able to take our scheduled vacation due to three-times-a-week-at-the-eye-vet, we managed to luck out with her eye and finally it started to fill up with healing blood, which is what we were all waiting for, and her glaucoma stabilized thanks to over the top eye pressure meds, so we were able to take our week off. Yay!

This year’s vacation wasn’t nearly as fun for the pug, I hate to say, since she couldn’t do a huge amount outside with the whole cone/blind thing (you have no idea how tough it is to walk a blind pug wearing a cone! Her sense of direction is completely thrown off and she walks all over the place and has to be watched Very Carefully). However I did try to make sure we cuddled her plenty when in the cottage and she did at least get to soak up wonderful breeze coming off the lake and a nice sunny area to lie in (she loved lying in this doorway all week long).

We’ve had one checkup since we got back and things are still progressing, though the eye doc is now muttering about some scarring. Since the pug was 90% blind anyway, I can’t see that it will make a huge difference, but we’ll have to wait and see. He still generally feels good about the eye and tells us that it is healing, which is the important thing. And we’re now on every TWO weeks for visits, a record for us this summer!

Thank you to ALL of you for your love, support, and comments in the last post. Now that we’re actually back home and not running back to the eye vet 3x weekly, I plan to get more pictures of the delectable princess up here for everyone to enjoy. :)

Just a week or so after I posted last, Merry started squinting with one of her eyes. We took her into the eye vet to see if something was wrong… and the news was not good.

She had an ulcer on her eye and it was fairly deep. The eye vet felt that surgery was probably the best option – go in and essentially “scrape out” the damaged parts and then sew up her eye for a month and see if it healed – if not, another surgery to remove the eyeball itself.

You can imagine how well this went over with Merry’s Daddy and I.

The thing is: this little pug means the world to us. She’s only 10, but that puts her at greater risk for surgery; so does the simple fact that she’s a pug. Add in a slight arrythmia in her heart and it all adds up to major risk for surgery… to save an eye.

We asked for options.

The eye vet reluctantly told us that we might be able to heal it with drugs but it would be unlikely. I said I wanted to try for a couple of days anyway – I asked if there was MORE risk to her eye in waiting a couple of days and just treating with drugs, and the vet admitted no… so that’s what we tried.

What followed was a crazy month of being at the eye vet’s 2-3 times a week, a crazily rigorous schedule of drops and ointments that included waking up in the middle of the night to administer them, and a very lethargic and at times completely stoned pug who loved to scare the hell out of us by lollygagging around and not wanting to do anything. In between she developed glaucoma in her eye, spent a scary two days in the vet’s offices and will now be on meds for that for the rest of her life.

Whee!

Luckily, I am happy to report that the puglet is healing. Her eye seems to be stable and healing slowly and so long as everything cooperates, with any luck she’ll be out of the cone in a month or two and ready to take on the world again. Her energy is mostly back though she can’t do much with it since she’s not allowed to play yet.

For those of you still following along at home… that’s why you haven’t heard from us lately. :) Saving that sweet little eye has been our #1 priority and as a result, the blog has languished. But I hope to have more lovely conehead shots to share with you soon!

As I mentioned, the princess was SO excited the night of her birthday that she played in ways she hasn’t in months. A perfect example is digging at the ball, which she only does when she’s REALLY excited – we hadn’t seen her do this in ages. She’s SO comical when she does this.

Merry loved playing fetch this year on the beach for her birthday – she got even more excited than usual. It was incredibly sweet. Her Dad, “sister” and I all had a great time watching her run around and get sand everywhere. And I do mean everywhere! There are so many more photos from her birthday that I want to share, but it will have to wait as Merry’s grandparents are coming in for a visit today and are here for the weekend. Next week, more Merry on the beach goodness to enjoy. :)

After a picnic and a rousing game of fetch on the beach, we brought the princess home to have her “birthday cake” – a thin slice of banana bread with a plain yogurt topping. She looooves yogurt. She was ecstatic, as you can see. If I ever figure out how to edit video, I have a hilarious full video of her eating this entire thing. Thanks for your patience folks – I’m photo-smart, but video-impaired. (Can’t work a fax machine either, but that’s another story.) More photos from her birthday tomorrow – more action-infused beach shots! :)

Believe it or not, we celebrated Merry’s 10th birthday last night. It stuns me to realize how quickly ten years have passed, and how much she has come to mean to all of us. Her “Dad”, her “sister” and I helped her to celebrate in high style – first a picnic in the park (where for once the pug was allowed to sit on my lap and be fed many bits of chicken, apple and watermelon from everyone at the table – a beggar’s dream!), followed by fetch on the beach, and then home for “cake” (a bit of banana bread with yogurt on top). To say she had fun is an understatement! I have many more photos to share but they’re taking forever to get off my camera so, for now, I’ll have to limit the post to one pic. I’ll post a followup in a day or two with more photos of her special birthday celebration. ;)

Yes, I know everyone thinks of them as weeds and pulls out chemicals every year to get rid of the things. But honestly? Dandelions are one of my favourite flowers. They decorate the world for a week or two each spring, turning everything sunny yellow and cheerful. Then they turn to gorgeous big puffballs of seed, equally lovely and totally different and ensuring an even more vibrant show the following year. Plus, the greens are wicked yum. I’m thinking of saving a big bunch of seed this year and making a concentrated planting in my backyard so that next year we can have some delish salads in the springtime.

The princess pug, on the other hand, just likes sniffing around them. :)

Bathed in the soft evening light, the blind little pug seeks her owner… in a head tilt her dad and I have come to name as “looking for God” – or “begging the ceiling”, particularly when there’s food around. :)

You don’t get too many shots these days of the pug grinning from ear to ear – she’s a slower puggie these days. :) But take the puglet to Grandma and Grandpa’s and what do you get? Why, you get the same adorable pug you used to see all the time… five years ago: Happy, excited, always following people around, wanting to play ball, begging treats at every opportunity (okay, she still does that one. ha!). Honestly, I was so thrilled to see her so thrilled that it made me indescribably happy. How cute is she like this?

How the pug loves her fetch. Even now, nearly 10 years after she first learned how to fetch and play, she gets excited when the ball comes out. The big difference – other than the blindness of course – is her stamina is much less. After 10 or 15 minutes of play (at most), she loses interest and goes to lay down. But while the play is on, she’s as cute, excited and youthful as she was in the first couple of years. And I love the expressions she makes! :)